Posts Tagged ‘John Turturro’

Woody Allen is a talented writer, director and actor. He is generally very funny, and often provides a very unique perspective that feels familiar but is undeniably his own. Now he will finally achieve the final peg for total life victory, he will play John Turturro’s pimp.

Turturro’s next project as a writer and director is Fading Gigolo, and he has been able to pull in a very impressive cast.

Variety is reporting Allen will co-star in the film with Turturro with Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara likely to sign on in supporting roles.

Turturro and Allen [play] cash-strapped best friends who decide to go into the gigolo business together and subsequently attract the suspicion of the Hasidic Jewish community in which they live. Duo take on the pseudonyms Virgil and Bongo, with Allen pimping out Turturro’s character until he falls for a Jewish widow.

The movie sounds incredibly interesting, and pulling in Woody Allen just as an actor likely speaks volumes about script.

This will be Allen’s first project since winning this year’s Academy Award for best screenplay, for his film Midnight in Paris. Turturro has recently been seen fighting giant robots in a certain loud and explodey trilogy, so this next picture is an interesting change of pace for the both of them.

When asked about his role in Jaws 4: The Revenge, Michael Caine once said, “I never saw it—but I saw the house it paid for, and it’s fantastic!” I suspect John Turturro’s been saying something similar for the past four years whenever he’s asked about the Transformers movies. Now we can add John Malkovich and Frances McDormand to that group. And maybe Alan Tudyk.

The plot is as labyrinthine as it is unnecessary. Back in the early 1960s, a ship from war-torn Cybertron (if the Transformers spend all their time fighting, how did they ever evolve?) crashed on the moon. Among the cargo were several “Pillars” that have some sort of significance to the war.

Also, a big, tough Autobot named Sentinal Prime. The White House gets wise to this, and thus we have the impetus for the moon landing (apparently, many historical events were due to Transformers; they don’t get around to revealing that car in which Kennedy was shot was an Autobot, but there may be a fourth film).

Fast-forward to the present day, where the Autobots are now working for the Feds to preserve humanity (how did we ever get along without them?). While on a mission to Chernobyl, Optimus Prime discovers some remnant of the Pillars and decides that it’s high time to revive Sentinal. Also, the Pillars are somehow able to teleport things, which means that it can be used to bring an army of invading Decepticons to earth (according to Frances McDormand, National Intelligence Director).

You know you can tell a good trailer when 90% of it is all doom and gloom. That’s just what we’re getting with the first full-length feature trailer for Michael Bay’s Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon.

If you’re just now coming into the franchise or you have already forgotten the robot balls from Revenge of the Fallen, here’s the official synopsis.

Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth’s past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

This trailer gives us all of the goods: tons of destruction, introduction of both the human and robot villain, and lots of visible robot battling. Joining the regular cast of humans this time is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, John Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey, Ken Jeong, and the always evil Frances McDormand.

Take a look at the brand new trailer after the jump, and get ready for Transformer action (and hopefully Dinobots) on July 1st.

Michael Bay loves teaser trickery when it comes to his epic Transformers film franchise. We all remember the first teaser that started it all, which gave many of us hope for what turned out to be a pretty lackluster franchise. Bay is hoping to change all of our minds with his newest film in the series, Dark of the Moon.

Here’s the official, yet somehow unreleased synopsis.

The Autobots Bumblebee, Ratchet, Ironhide and Sideswipe led by Optimus Prime, are back in action, taking on the evil Decepticons, who are determined to avenge their defeat in 2009’s ‘Transformers Revenge of the Fallen’. In this new movie, the Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the U.S. and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has to come to the aid of his robot friends. There’s new characters too, including a new villain in the form of Shockwave, a longtime ‘Transformers’ character who rules Cybertron while the Autobots and Decepticons battle it out on Earth.

All of our favorites are back from the first two films, including Shia, Duhamel, and Turturro, with new faces like John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and Patrick Dempsey joining the fight this time.

Check out the new teaser trailer after the jump and catch Transformers: Dark of the Moon in theaters on July 1st.

There have been worse movies than The Nutcracker in 3D. Certainly films made with less ambition, with less skilled actors and more modest sets and effects budgets. But it’s genuinely challenging to recall a more wrong-headed film than Andrei Konchalovsky’s convoluted, frankly baffling re-imagining of a beloved children’s story and ballet.

For all its popularity and name-recognition, Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker is a bit light on plot. All the incident is front-loaded to the first half. A girl receives a nutcracker as a Christmas gift. She brings him to life, so he can do battle with the Rat King that enslaved him, and then they return to his fantasy kingdom. The entire second half is just fairies celebrating the Nutcracker’s return. Pretty anti-climactic.

Obviously, anyone wanting to turn the story into a traditional children’s film would have to rework it. But Konchalovsky’s decision to turn the story into a WWII analogy, and to fill the second half with sci-fi/fantasy chase sequences was clearly not the best strategy. (Also, his decision to rework Tchaikovsky’s iconic Nutcracker themes into cheesy musical numbers…more on that later…)

The basic story of The Nutcracker has thus been twisted into this inane sub-Bruckheimer pumped-up fantasy epic about an evil fascist Rat City and the prince, who has been magically transformed into a Nutcracker, that must retake human form and a human rebellion against the rats.

With the fan reaction being as negative as it could have been for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, it was expected that the studio and Michael Bay would be very careful in choosing a title for the third film. Fans felt alienated with the way Revenge of the Fallen went down, between the racist robots and robot balls, and now that creeping feeling is returning as the title for the third film has been announced.

Some upcoming books listed at the Amazon revealed what might possibly be, the Title of the 3rdTransformersMovie.
The books are to be released (May 17, 2011) very near the release date of Transformer 3 (July 1, 2011). The author of the books is official and has written books for the 2007 Movie and ROTF. The publisher is none other than HarperColins, which produced similar books for both movies.

So it may sound like a high school adaptation of a Pink Floyd film, but this could bring new depth to Bay’s Transformers universe. It has been confirmed that Megan Fox is not returning, while LaBeouf, Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, and Turturro are all coming back. Joining the cast for the first time is Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey, Ken Jeong, Alan Tudyk, and Frances McDormand.

The film is slated to hit on July 1st of 2011, so expect to see a big trailer by year’s end, hopefully along with a confirmed title.

It seems to be quite the week for trailers, as David O. Russell’s The Fighter gets a trailer, and now we’ve got a brand new trailer for this Thanksgiving’s big fantasy film, The Nutcracker in 3D.

Of course, the film will have to fight tooth and nail in the box office, as it opens wide on the second weekend of Warner’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, but the trailer makes the film look like it could just win the hearts of families everywhere this November.

The premise is a bit complex, so we’ll let the official synopsis do it justice:

On Christmas night, Mary’s new friend, The Nutcracker (Charlie Rowe) or “NC,” comes to life and takes her on a wondrous journey into his magical world of fairies, sugarplums, and other Christmas toys which come to life. Mary soon realizes that this fantastical kingdom is facing danger from the tyrannical rule of the evil Rat King (John Turturro) and his devious mother (Frances de la Tour).

When NC is taken hostage, Mary and her newfound toy friends must uncover the secret of the Rat King to rescue NC and his kingdom. Based on the story that inspired acclaimed Russian composer Piotr Tchaikovsky to create the music for the iconic ballet, the film includes eight exciting new songs penned by Oscar-winning lyricist and librettist Sir Tim Rice (The Lion King, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar).

John Turturro as the Rat King? Sold. Don’t let the film’s lack of a major distributor fool you, this film could end up being a major release. At least, that’s what we think after seeing the trailer. Check it out for yourself after the jump, and catch The Nutcracker in 3D in theaters on November 24th.